


New Girl on the Front

by phoenixyfriend



Category: Captain America (Movies), Loki: Agent of Asgard, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Assume this is MCU's future God of Stories, Crossover, Gen, Genderfluid Loki (Marvel), Kinda, this is... a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 23:21:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14758226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: Time-travel is easily within the purview of the God of Stories. So is messing with Starks by knowing more than they do because of said time-travel. So is flirting with pretty, pretty men. So is phase-shifting, and Asgardian super-strength.So is a plot, but you're a lot less likely to find that one here.





	New Girl on the Front

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sergeant_angel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sergeant_angel/gifts).



> This probably fits better into the type of continuity you see in @sergeant-angel's fics than anywhere else. Don't try to make sense of it.

Over seventy years from now, Steve was going to find out that the phrase 'not like other girls' was not a compliment, or really anything most women wanted to hear, because it implied that there was something wrong with the other girls, which just served to pit women against each other for no reason.

(He was going to hear this from an irate Kate Bishop, in a diner, at three in the morning. He was going to be fresh off a mission with a woman he'd only barely heard about from Clint's stories about a sidekick of sorts, and he was going to be amused and amazed and maybe deciding that she was definitely a new friend.)

He hadn't heard that yet, though, so when he met Howard's "shiny new friend," he immediately decided that she wasn't like other girls.

There were lots of reasons for this. The woman was barefoot, and missing a tooth, and seemed to be singed on her... everywhere. Her eyes almost glowed, in a way that was more unnerving than enthralling, and her hair was shaggy instead of in the careful, professional updos that the WACs and SSR ladies preferred to wear.

She was also carrying a large gold spear of some sort, and a tiara with horns. One and a half horns, to be precise, since one of them was broken.

"Hi! I'm Loki," she said, holding out a hand that seemed to have dirt under the nails. She grinned, teeth shiny white against  _unnerving_  black lip paint, save for the one that wasn't there. She had an accent he couldn't place, too. "Pleased to meet you. Kinda. I guess it is the first time, for this version."

"Hi," Steve said, not sure how to take that. He shook her hand and played it safe. "Steve Rogers. Er... likewise."

Loki grinned wider, eyes crinkling up.

"Loki like the Norse god?" Bucky asked.

"Exactly!"

"Your parents named you after a god?"

"No!" Loki said, continuing with the cheer for all of three seconds before her face fell. "Well, actually..."

Steve waited.

And waited.

And turned to Bucky and Peggy and Howard in turn, because  _what?_

"I guess it depends on what you consider a parent," Loki eventually said, the smile coming back. She looked a little... deranged.

"Are you okay?" Bucky asked.

"Are you  _high?"_ Howard demanded.

"No, and no," Loki said. "I'm not entirely here mentally, though. It's a little strange."

She stepped back, and then passed through the table.

A few people drew guns. Bucky and Peggy were among those. Steve even reached for his shield, but then Howard sighed.

"Come on, did you really need to do that?" he whined. "Now nobody's going to get anything done until you explain."

"You sound  _just_ like Tony," Loki told him. "Also, what makes you think I'm going to explain? I already told  _you_."

"You told me nothing," Howard said.

"I told you more than I'm telling them," Loki said, pointing at Steve and the people around him.

There were still quite a few guns out.

"You a ghost or something?" Bucky asked.

"Hm? Oh, no, if I was a ghost, I probably wouldn't be able to do this," Loki said, and proceeded to pick up the table, with one hand, over her head.

"Put that down," Howard snapped. "I need it."

"Do you, Stark? Do you really?" Loki asked.

"Howard," Peggy said, her voice too sweet to be sincere. "If I could have a word with you out in the hall?"

Howard hesitated, looked at Loki, and then sighed and headed for the door. "Don't break anything!"

"I make no promises!" Loki called back. She set the table back on the ground, more gently than Steve thought to expect, and then hopped up onto it and crossed her legs. "So..."

"So?" Steve asked, slowly and with not a little trepidation.

"You're a  _pretty_ bunch, aren't you?" Loki uncrossed her legs and swung them back and forth, leaning forward with her elbows locked so that her elbows inched towards her shoulders. "I can see why Billy was obsessed, now."

Bucky leaned into Steve's space and whispered. "Do you have any idea what's going?"

Steve opened his mouth, looked at Bucky, looked at Loki, and then closed his mouth and shook his head.

She was  _still_ smiling.

"So, how do you know Stark?" Steve asked.

"I landed on him when I showed up," Loki said, which really only raised more questions than it answered. She kicked her legs back and forth again. "He was very flirty, and then very annoyed. I don't think he likes me much."

"Stark not liking a pretty woman? That's a first," someone muttered.

"Oh, I'm not always a woman," Loki said, waving a hand dismissively. "Just sometimes. That's not why he finds me annoying, though."

She paused, waiting for someone to question the why of the annoying, and then pouted when nobody did. "He thinks I'm annoying because he doesn't like magic, or me refusing to answer his questions because I think it's funny when he gets frustrated about not knowing the secrets I do."

"Are," Steve started to say, and then coughed. His throat was dry. It was probably the shock. "Are those secrets dangerous to keep?"

"A little," Loki said. She didn't seem concerned by that. "More dangerous to share, though. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, spacey-wacey nonsense."

"What," Bucky asked, voice so flat that Steve didn't even think there was a question mark in his head to finish off the word.

"David Tennant," Loki said, hopping off the desk and spinning with her arms outstretched. "Great Doctor. Not my favorite, but Capaldi's just grouchy enough to love. Not my favorite David either, but that's an entirely different story."

" _What,_ " Bucky repeated.

Loki faced them again, smile back on her face, and Steve thought it looked even more wild than before. Howard seemed to trust her at least a little, but that wasn't saying much.

She lost the smile, and Steve felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

"Something wrong?" He managed to ask.

"Mm," Loki said, tilting her head and looking at them. She tapped the side of her jaw, watching them. "The rubber band's almost ready to snap me back. I think I have a few more hours, but not beyond that. So..."

She looked at Steve, and then at Bucky. She walked forward with quick, heavy steps that had Steve tensing up in anticipation of her trying to bowl them over. She stopped just in front of them, and there were eyes watching them from all over the lab, but she didn't seem to notice. "Be careful, now. I'll be seeing you both again, but it's going to be a long, long time from now, and you'll be meeting a different, less pleasant me before then."

"The hell?" Bucky asked.

"You saying you can see the future, ma'am?" Steve asked.

Loki smiled, and it was humorless this time. Not fake, but very open about the grim amusement. "Something like that. Say hi to Kate for me, yeah?"

Howard burst back into the room, Peggy at his heels and berating him for something Steve didn't quite catch. Loki's smile sprung back onto her face, and she spun to face Howard. She bound over and picked him up off the floor in a hug, saying something about going out for a banana sundae before they went extinct.

Something felt twisted and heavy in Steve's chest.

(She was right, though. He did see her again, eventually, several years after meeting a different and far more homicidal Loki.)

(He did say 'hi' to Kate and relay the story, once everything clicked.)

(Kate laughed at him.)

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about one of Sarge's fics that had time-traveling Kate, and somehow got to wondering which character would show up and stand out immediately by virtue of not giving a single flying fuck about 40s haircare.


End file.
